It was a good month, April. As I have learned, usually the windiest month in Minnesota. I don’t know if I will ever get used to that wind, it is not easy to move around in the field the hole day with a constant blower set straight at your head on maximum speed. Particulary when planting fine lettuce seed, or kale, not mentioning ultra light parsnip seeds.

But it was a good month, with some good rain, and the lettuce, radishes and spinach have started to grow. Even the peppers and tomatoes are out, out in the hoop house. It is a real hands-on experiment for us, using high tunnels for the first year. So far everything is growing fine, but we’ve learned that we were extending the season not only for the vegetables, when we discovered something biting our tomato, lettuce and pepper leaves. According to our research it was a flea beetle. An organic method to repell these little creatures is to pour hot water over some garlic and cayenne pepper and let it sit for a day or two, and then spray that on the plants. It has helped so far.

In the end of April we recieved a lot of deliveries of fruits, like rhubarb, raspberries, strawberries, but also onions and asparagus. I am hoping that pruning and trellising berries will become my hobby. Kelly says that everybody loves berries. Somehow I like taking care of them than eating them. That’s a good match!